This invention relates to a shared document feed station, and more particularly to a document feeding system for the printer of a point of sale terminal.
In the past, retail stores and similar businesses had utilized cash registers to record customer transactions. Modern cash registers function to provide both a journal tape and a receipt tape. The journal tape records every transaction that is entered upon a particular cash register for subsequent use in various accounting and management operations. Conversely, the receipt tape records individual transactions, with sequential sections of the receipt tape being torn away and handed to the customer following each transaction. While receipt tapes are adequate for relatively uncomplicated cash transactions, they have never been considered adequate for relatively complicated transactions such as charge sales, sales of items from different departments, sales of items necessitating the recordation of serial numbers, stock numbers, or the like, etc. Such transactions have therefore typically involved the manual completion of one or more documents, either in addition to or in lieu of a cash register entry.
Point of sale terminals are now widely used in place of traditional cash registers for recording customer transactions. A primary purpose behind the use of a point of sale terminal instead of a cash register is to facilitate the capture of a considerably greater amount of and considerably more detailed data concerning customer transactions than is possible with cash registers. Another purpose is to automate and simplify the heretofore manual operations that are involved in relatively complicated customer transactions.
While some point of sale terminals function to prepare the same document regardless of what type of customer transaction is involved, it is considered more desirable to provide the traditional receipt tape for cash transactions and to provide an alternative type of document, such as a cut form, multipart document, etc., for relatively complicated transactions such as charge sales, and the like. It would of course be possible to provide a separate printing mechanism for each type of document to be utilized in a point of sale terminal. However, such an apparatus would be unduly expensive, cumbersome and complicated to operate.
The present invention comprises a printing mechanism for a point of sale terminal wherein all of the various documents that are prepared in the terminal are printed by the same apparatus. In accordance with the broader aspects of the invention, a printing mechanism is utilized to effect printing along a printing path. Apparatus is provided for selectively advancing either a receipt tape through a receipt tape zone extending transversely to the printing path or for advancing an alternative document through an alternative document zone extending transversely to the printing path and overlying the receipt tape zone. Detectors are provided for sensing the insertion of an alternative document into the alternative document zone and for thereafter causing the document advancing mechanism to advance the alternative document instead of the receipt tape.
In accordance with more specific aspects of the invention, the document advancing mechanism includes a drive shaft. A first set of rollers receives the receipt tape therebetween and includes a roller mounted on the drive shaft and actuated through a one way clutch to advance the receipt tape whenever the drive shaft is rotated in a first direction. The alternative document is advanced by sets of rollers mounted on opposite sides of the receipt tape advancing rollers and each including a roller mounted on the drive shaft for advancing the alternative document when the drive shaft is rotated in the opposite direction.
In accordance with still other aspects of the invention, the alternative document zone extends laterally beyond the receipt tape zone. The document detectors are mounted in a portion of the alternative document zone extending laterally beyond the receipt tape zone and on opposite sides of the printing path. One of the detectors comprises a lever mounted for actuation by the insertion of an alternative document into the alternative document zone. The other detector comprises a photoelectric apparatus for detecting the presence of a document in the alternative document zone.